No, haven't thought of that. You should try it. If that works, then we know that dev mode stuff is either not there or forced-disabled in the firmware.

I will now but I dont think its as simple as the one entry, theres the one entry for menu option, but I think it must link to anther section further down that relates to sub categories, there is also a sprx file that relates to categories so we dont really have complete picture yet, lot more research to be done in this area as its the first step to enabling tool/test/debug/QA options,that and getting a debug consoles dev_flash , dev_flash2 , dev_flash3 ,and hdd0 dump to work with.

Suprised there is not more public work going on in this area, maybe its all being done behind closed doors!

I've been playing around with the RCOs for a while now. One thing I tried was swaping page names. for example, clicking Power Options redirects to "Tool Menu". However, the system just freezes. I don't know if it's because the firmware doesn't have support for these functions (most likely), or I'm not doing something right.

OK, here's one bit of info for a start, ive been able to recreate this idea mentioned by yifanlu, by swapping page/plane names in the main xml from inside the rcos, it does work, ive managed to get a tool option to appear in place of the WMA activation option. Now its not so important as debug options are enabled easily with vsh.self/index.dat but the theory might still be good for readding the HDD formatting options for otherOS etc or some other option.

I used the wma activation option because its no longer needed with debug WMA options available. I was going to use the ATRAC option too for the same reason.

I do have all 3.15 rcos, but also all the otherOS options are still in the newer rcos, its like they have just kicked out the code from sprx files, so in theory if someone can just resign the sysconf.sprx from 3.15 to be signed as 3.41/3.55 it would probably work, along with grafs HV mods I assume.

But ya its just laziness on the part of sony leaving all the otherOS code in the rco files after 3.15. heres 3 rcos from 3.15, I can add anymore if you need them. I don't have any extracted ones anymore, I deleted my working files so I could start fresh as it was getting messy and I wasn't sure what was original and what was modded anymore.

Thanks Devil, I have managed to gather tones of old stuff that may come in handy, and this is an help as I can get more of an idea and background of how the otheros is called and whats missing from the menus. what I am trying to do is use the old otheros idea to call up the new Linux idea thats running on the 3.55, without having to boot from the network.

Comparing code from older xmls has some benifits, for example in the older xmls the address for the PS3 instrucion manuals is written in plain text in xml, in newer FWs the address is hardcoded into the sprx like netflix etc. Although in newer firmwares the address for Home and Folding at Home pkgs are still in plain text inside in xmls.

P.S. Swapping the address from home to folding at home will allow home to download, install and bootup without any PSN connection. It crashes a minute after booting tho or asks for software update depending on FW.